My adventures as a teacher

My intention was to blog everyday.  That became 2-3 times a week.  Now I’d like to do it once a month    Seriously.  I’m so busy during the week that I just don’t have time to blog which is sad because I have so much to say.

First, the new schedule at school.  Our school runs on 6 day cycles.  In each cycle the students have chemistry 4 times and pre-algebra 4 times.  I have 4 sections of chemistry and 2 sections of pre-algebra.  That results in 24 classes per 6 day cycle. So far so good.  Each day is broken down to 6 modules. 6 mods per 6 days is 36 modules per cycle.  I need to eat, so that is 30 mods per cycle.  There is also 1 mod a cycle set aside for all the various faculty meetings, that leaves 29 mods per cycles, and 1 mod per cycle set aside for all the student meetings, that’s 28 mods per cycles.  Since I have 24 classes I have exactly 4 hours every 6 days to get all my planning, copying, grading, etc. done.  That. Is. Not. Enough.  It is just not.  Last year our schedule included 7 mods per day and I was only teaching 3 sections of chemistry and 2 sections of pre-alg.  I had a lot more time for planning and grading and all that stuff.  This new schedule is really tough.  It’s got it’s good points; each class is now an hour – up from 45 minutes;  school ends at 2:30 everyday which leaves time to meet with students etc;  so there are some definite benefits to the new schedule.  Unfortunately the drawbacks are pretty significant.

Second, there’s a girl in my chemistry class that is just driving me nuts and I’m not sure how to deal with her.  She doesn’t do anything overt or outright that I can bust her on, it’s just the way she says things and the way she phrases questions. It is so freaking annoying and I just am not sure what to do.  I much prefer someone who is outright obnoxious, that I can deal with.

Third, the notebooks seem to be working out well.  I am the one slacking and not keeping the assignments flowing but that reverts back to my first topic.  The other day in class someone was trying to find something and another student was able to tell her what page it was on.  Nice. That’s what I wanted.

That brings us up to the present.  I am thankful for the holiday tomorrow and there is only 3 weeks until break.  Yea!!!! It finally dawned on me that we work 7 weeks and have a break, 7 weeks and have a break, 7 weeks and have a break…..Doh!!!  Nice routine though.

but time just gets away from me.  So let’s recap.  In the last 9 days not a whole lot has happened.  We had open house on Wednesday, Aug 18th – that was brutal.  Since our school runs on a 6 day cycle and every day is different, they pick one day to use for the parents to visit their childrens classes.  They picked day 6 which is a day I have only 4 of my 6 classes. So I spent a fair amount of time with nothing to do. Also, they run the schedule only each class is 15 minutes long.  15 minutes?!?!?!?   I don’t have things that will take up 15 minutes!!!  That is way too long.  Also, this is not about specific children but the class in general.  So I ended up talking story to the parents, it was okay.  But 15 minutes per class plus 5 minutes passing, with 6 mods in a day – do the math.  2 hours!!!  It started at 6:30 with everyone in the student center and the parents started going to classes at 6:55.  We finished at 9 pm.  9 pm!!!!!!!!!  I’m getting ready for bed by then.  Needless to say on Thursday I was so tired I had to come up with a project for my classes so I didn’t have to teach   That ended up working out well though.

For the prealgebra classes I set up 3 stations around the room.  I assigned each student a number as they walked in the door and that was the station they started at.  Station 1 played a game – which the kids loved.  Station 2 did a worksheet, and station 3 went over the homework with me.  We stayed at each station 15 minutes then switched.  It really worked out well, I got to work with each student over their homework and everyone got a chance to play a game.  I plan on doing that every couple of weeks so that I can interact with each student one-on-one to make sure everyone is on track.  One thing I learned from last year is that sometimes you can’t tell when a student has fallen off the rails.  They can sit in class and seemingly answer questions but not really know what they are doing.  I think by working in a small group I can get a better feel for how they are doing.

For the chemistry classes I pulled out the old bearded men and cats experiment.  This is one of those things I keep in reserve just in case.  And Thursday was very much a just in case day.  The kids get a kick out of this experiment.  I have them read it then analyze it; what was the objective, subjects, methods, etc.  I then have them point out any flaws in the experiment and ways that it could be improved.  It’s a fun class when we do this and it was fun on Thursday.

Other than that things have been just plugging along.  I am snowed under with paperwork and will spent the majority of the weekend grading.  Luckily I have nothing much else planned and Hubby is working   Time now to get a workout in before I tackle the grading…..